Swindler Preventer

This addon adds information to the tooltip to remind you that you could buy an item from a vendor instead. Never get swindled again!

Currently supports Recipes, Vanity Pets, and Bags!

5.0.1 (15799) BETA - 2012/7/4

Yes, I'm still around. Between having a kidney stone a couple months ago, and playing Diablo 3 and going to school, I haven't been playing WoW much these last few months. But I'm still here. =P

Now that Mists of Pandaria finally decided to turn addons on, we can get down to some beta testing!

I will add MoP Beta recipes to Swindler Preventer, but beware changing prices/locations/data as the beta updates! I'll try to stay on top of it but it's much easier to detect new data than it is to detect old/bad data. When the expansion is released I will wipe all data from the beta and rebuild again to make sure there's no bad data. But in the meantime, feel free to report 'new' data! Wowhead doesn't yet have full data on vendor-sold non-bop recipes yet so reports from users is the only way to build data at this time.

Since the BETA data shouldn't bother live users, I'm marking this version as a 'release' so you can still use it on live. But since the toc is set for the Beta it will show as 'out of date' in 4.3.4 and you will need to use 'load out of date addons' to use it. If you don't want to do this you can manually set the toc to 40300 instead of 50001 in the SwindlerPreventer.toc file.

- BETA: In MoP the game would freeze when talking to a vendor if the data wasn't fully loaded into cache yet. With even a 0.01 second delay it doesn't freeze. I can live with a 0.01 second delay. If you have any WoW API knowledge, take a look at SwindlerPreventer.lua starting at line 288 and feel free to see if you can improve upon my method. I'm still a beginner! But this seems to work for me and stops the freezing.
- Zan Shivsprocket has been corrected to Zan Shivsproket. This should be the last of the typos in pre-Pandaria data. That I know of, nobody has reported any!
- Added some new reported information for vendors and locations for Cataclysm as well. Of note is Enchant Weapon - Executioner, new in 4.3.
- BETA: Added vendor Nam Ironpaw for 2 Cooking recipes and Nat Pagle for a pet. So far that's the only MoP data that's been reported.

... Not to be a beggar, but donations would be *really* useful right now. Rent's gone up, but my income hasn't. Right now my bank account's actually sitting in the negative and the overdraft charges are piling up. I've gotten rid of a few of my bills so I should be good if I can get back in the black, but first I need to pay off what I already owe. =/ Plus I turn 30 on July 15th 2012 and it looks like I won't even be able to afford to celebrate my own birthday! Help a broke college student out? ^_^ (Oh, and if anyone wants to hire a student programmer, feel free to contact me! Right now I'm taking classes in Visual Basic and XHTML/CSS. I'm a straight-A student!)

But enough about my woes. Even if you don't donate, hope you enjoy the addon! ^_^

4.3.3 - 2012/03/03

I've been too busy with schoolwork to play WoW so I didn't get to do any of the Love is in the Air stuff. Sorry for the late update.

- Added Dramm Riverhorn and the four Blacksmith Plans he sells.
- Added the Love is in the Air pet and mount.
- Previously, all vendor-bought mounts in the game were BoP (or BoA). Now that there is at least one that can be put on the Auction House I have added mounts to the 'detection' function. Since I wasn't able to test this during the event we'll just have to see if it works if any other BoE mounts come out.
- Since I have blacklist working, and BoP detection working too, and I was adding mount detection anyway, I re-added bag detection. It'll blacklist the ones that are sold everywhere but in case a new type of vendor-bought non-BoP bag comes out it'll (hopefully) be detected too.

Anything else you think should be detected? I can also add in specific items manually if desired.

I know this is not the most earth-shattering addon in the world but your donations really are appreciated. ^_^ Thanks to the few of you who have donated so far!

4.3a - 2012/01/23

- Added the two new pets for the Lunar Festival. This presented an interesting dilemma: Each faction can only buy one of the items, but they are both sold by the same, neutral vendor.

A) The option I went for is to list the vendor only on the item that can be bought by your faction. The other will say 'seasonal vendor' but not have a vendor listed.
2) Another option would be to list the vendor on both items for both factions, but this might upset people when they realize their faction can only buy one of them. (Imagine someone who sees both listed on the AH, and then buys the one for their faction while expecting to buy the other with the 50 Coins of Ancestry...)
Third) And the final option would be to have a note listed on the item that cannot be purchased by your faction that it can only be purchased by the other faction. I didn't choose this option because it would be the only item in the game where you see a vendor location for the opposite faction.

If I get a lot of comments about the 'seasonal vendor but no vendor listed' note that will appear on the one that cannot be bought by your faction, I may go with the third option anyway. I do not expect it to be a common occurrence, however, but we shall see.

Haven't gotten any donations or ideas/requests/suggestions in a while. Haven't gotten any data reports either, not that there's any data TO report though. Hope people haven't forgotten about this little addon. =(

4.3 - 2011/12/15

- NEW FEATURE! Swindler Preventer now has version checking! It will wipe your saved variables for you whenever a version 4.3 or later replaces a different version. This will fix any errors related to bags that people have reported because they did not delete their saved variables. It will also make sure that any data submissions do not include data that is already included in the addon. Thanks to Gazmik (again) for pointing me in the right direction. ^_^

However, if you find new data and do not submit it, it WILL reset it from displaying in tooltips until you manually go back to the vendor and 'discover' the location again. So always submit data! ^_^ Thanks to blacklist and BoP support, new data should be VERY rare nowadays! ^_^

- Added 'Gingerbread Cookie' to blacklist. Should've been there before, don't know why it wasn't. =P With the new version checking feature, your tooltip should automatically revert to the 'simplified' tooltip and not keep any locations you found. Merry Winterveil!
- Added Plans: Frostguard to database, which has one neutral vendor.
- Added a Darkmoon Faire vendor that is a new location for Brilliant Smallfish and Bristle Whisker Catfish recipes.
- Added a tooltip for the Guardian Cub to indicate it can be bought from the Blizzard Store. I tried really hard to get the € (euro) and £ (pound) symbols to work, but \128 and \163 just returned question marks. Any ideas?
- TOC update to 4.3.

Donations are great, as always, haven't gotten any in awhile. That's fine, though. Any other ideas, requests, or suggestions for new features?

4.2b - 2011/11/22

- Added 'Binds to Battle.net Account' to BoP detection so that Little Tarecgosa (and any future vendor-bought BoA pets/recipes) do not get detected.

- Fixed several typos in the data. Only a couple actual new recipe locations were added. No new recipes or pets were added. Updated toc to 4.2.
- Fixed 'blacklist' support. For recipes that have simplified tooltips, it should not detect new vendors any more. As these recipes are very common, that should significantly reduce the amount of 'recipe found' you find from Cooking and Enchanting supply vendors.
- Bind on Pickup support seems to be working perfectly. Yay for less unnecessary data reports! ^_^ As Blizzard seems to prefer bind on pickup recipes nowadays (at least from vendors), new data should be a rarity, possibly a pet now and then. This addon should be pretty standalone going forward but I will still support it with new data and toc updates and, if necessary, bug fixes. ^_^

Reminder: I have not yet implemented a way to automatically purge your saved variables file for each new version, so remember to delete it yourself, especially if you submit new data using that file, OR if you continue to get errors of 'location not found' or 'item is listed but has no vendors.' If you don't submit data or get errors, then you don't really have to worry about it. ^_^

Another Reminder: As always, donations not required of course, but definitely appreciated! I'll be going to school in January, to get an associate's degree in Computer Programming. Assuming I learn things I don't already know (which is a pretty safe assumption), I might be able to make my own addons from scratch! Wouldn't that be cool? If you wanna donate and help out, you can use the donate button on the page, or paypal to Thortok2000@msn.com. Thanks so much! ^_^

4.1a - 2011/05/11

So, I decided on a different way to re-create the database. By hand! I've hand-inputted all data currently available from WoWhead.com. Enjoy!

- All data up to date as of today using WoWhead's database. Vendors that no longer exist are no longer listed (hopefully...if you see a vendor in a tooltip on any item and you know the vendor no longer exists, report it! Addon can't detect that.) New zone names are used (Barrens and Stranglethorn in particular are now broken down into their subzones). Recipes that no longer exist are no longer in the database (so might run just a tiny bit faster due to smaller database! Probably won't notice though, it's already a small addon.)
- New feature: Recipes with a ton of locations are now simplified! No more gigantic tooltips! This will generally apply to recipes that have more than 15 vendors or so. These are marked as (for example) "Enchanting Supplies Vendors, Everywhere".
- Semi-new feature: Bag support is re-added! New and improved! Simplified tooltips included. 'Equivalent' support is added. When a particular bag is not available for purchase from a vendor but one of the same size is (not counting unique bags that you can only buy one of), it will now say so using the word 'equivalent'. Current Bag sizes with a vendor-sold equivalent are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 22, and 24. If you see a bag in the AH that's one of those sizes that doesn't have an 'equivalent' tooltip, let me know! Another thing the addon won't detect.
- Right now bag support is only for default bags. If you want support for 'specialized' bags (like Enchanting/Engineering/etc.) let me know! I don't consider these common enough to be a real source of 'swindling' but I could be wrong.
- Still looking for suggestions for categories and/or specific items that get swindled often!

- An additional reminder: If you continue to experience "Vendor not found" or "Location not found" errors (especially for bags), make sure to delete your SwindlerPreventer.lua file in your WoW/WTF/Account/AccountName/SavedVariables folder! (Again, this is actually a good idea to do every time I release a new version.) I'm tossing around the idea of getting the addon to automatically clear this data on each new version but first I have to figure out how to make it do that. =P

- If you enjoy this addon, please donate! Money's really tight right now and I could really use the help. =(

4.1 - 2011/05/09

- Alright, so my attempt at BoP detection kinda...didn't work. I tried again, more seriously this time. It works now! Promise! If 'binds when picked up' appears on the first 5 lines of the tooltip of the item, Swindler Preventer will now ignore it! It won't store the data and more importantly it will not spam you that it's found something. =P I use only the first 5 lines in case a non-BoP recipe makes a BoP item, couldn't think of any recipes that do that off the top of my head, but just in case.
- Added Winterspring Cub. As far as I know, no other new BoE pets or recipes since last patch!
- Some people are reporting errors for vendors or locations not found. Please keep in mind that bag support was removed for 4.0.3 version of this addon, but if you had 'collected' any data for them in your saved variables lua file, the addon will get confused and error. Simply delete your SwindlerPreventer.lua in your WoW/WTF/Account/AccountName/SavedVariables folder! (This is actually a good idea to do every time I release a new version, just so you know.)

- Now that BoP support has been 'perfected' (I hope) I'm considering a rebuild of the database. This would purge the database of all data that relates to BoP recipes as unnecessary, and also make the addon run just a tiny bit faster since there's less data to sort through (you probably wouldn't notice it though). Also it would clean the database of everything that was prior to the Shattering so any vendors that no longer exist would be removed.

Basically, I'd hand out copies with no data in them at all and people would report the data fresh again. A clean slate so to speak. If you're interested in using a 'blank' version of Swindler Preventer so as to re-collect data to build a new database with, let me know! Unless I can get a handful of people willing to re-collect data for BoE pets and recipes I will leave it as is.

- Thanks to everyone that has sent me donations! Still job hunting and money's extremely tight right now so it's very much appreciated!

4.0.3 - 2011/01/02

Major update.

- Swindler Preventer now (hopefully) will NOT detect recipes/pets that are BoP! This will create less spam of new recipes, less data for you to let me know about, and less data overall. This feature is new and I'm not sure I got it right (works fine in my testing) so gimme some feedback. I kinda jury-rigged it together. =/ If you use your LUA file to report new data, please delete your current file and only send data from after this version!
- Now that BoP items are no longer reported, you probably won't even notice this, but I've fixed it so items that require an alternate form of currency will correctly report the amount and form of currency required instead of saying '1 honor' every time.
- Bag support has been removed as being unnecessary and too spammy and too much data. Haris Pilton's bags are still in. Any specific item you feel is liable to get swindled on the AH, let me know!
- Now for the tricky part. Now that Deathwing has shown up, there are some vendors that no longer exist. If you should notice a tooltip displaying incorrect information regarding a vendor that no longer exists, the addon won't be able to detect this. You'll have to report it manually. Thank you for doing so!
- I have recently lost my job so donations are welcome while I look for a new one. =( In the meantime, long-desired features (such as BoP detection for instance,) now would be a good time to speak up!

4.0.1a - 2010/10/20

Fixed LUA error in regards to currency changes. Also updated honor cost of the couple of items bought with honor (mostly JC recipes). And this fix I did all by myself! Go me!

4.0.1 - 2010/10/18

Wow, almost a year since this thing has needed either a fix or even so much as a data update! And the only data update is ONE new pet from Dalaran that most of you probably know about by now (Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot.) Well, this is now patched to 4.0.1 (yay). Sorry it took so long, I'm only very slightly less un-awesome at fixing bugs then I was before. This fix was brought to you partly by the original Gazmik Fizzwidget (he helped me on the getglobal issue) and by Maul from the Silver Hand realm who helped me with the this/self stuff on the official UI forums. If any more LUA errors come up, let me know, but it's working for me!

By the way, someone asked me if I've gotten enough donations to make this worth my time. You know how many donations I've gotten? None. Not even a nickel. And that's totally okay. I update this addon because I want to use it and I post it for others because I can.

My plans for the expansion are to totally wipe and rebuild the database, in a large part based on contributions. It's gonna depend on how much the world actually changes. If a lot of vendors go bye-bye, then a rebuild of the database may be in order.

3.3a - 2009/12/28

So yeah, I'm completely un-awesome at fixing bugs. This fix, which restores the options and seems to get rid of all other LUA errors caused by /my/ attempted fix, is brought to you by Sithehenn.

3.3 - 2009/12/27
- TOC Update
- Data update!

There was a bug with the options panel in 3.3. So I removed it. Let me know if this presents a problem. How many people actually use the options anyway?
Sorry for the late update. I took a break from WoW, but I'm back now.

3.2 - 2009/9/01
- TOC Update
- Data update!

Remember, data submission is what causes new versions. No submitted data, no new versions!

Wow. I really have never noticed that before. I wonder how many people notice that? Honestly? It doesn't stick out until you're listing all of them from all the cities right in a row. Like if you're maintaining data for an addon like this. =P There may even be more store-named holiday goblins but these are the only ones that have been reported as selling recipes.

I'm also thinking about removing Container support. The vast majority of reported data is vendors, vendors, and yet more vendors, that sell the extremely common items of bags and quivers. In the next version, if I don't hear any requests otherwise, I'm going to change the extremely common items to say 'A lot of vendors, a lot of places' instead of filling your entire screen with vendor locations for that one item. The other option is to list only vendors in capital cities. What are your thoughts?

3.0.3 - 2008/11/09
- Fixed slash command. Thanks Joel!
- Added Containers of all kinds. Only the exact version that can be bought from a vendor is included, though. For instance, a Small Black Pouch will not list that it can be bought from a vendor, even though it's the exact same size as a Small Brown one. So just be wary, if you don't care about the color of your bag, and only the size, look for the 'brown' color for vendor information.
- Added 'detection' for Vanity Pets, Quivers/Ammo Pouches, and Containers for English localization. This data seems to be incomplete on websites such as WoWDigger, Thottbot, WoWHead, etc., so please report any data you find! You can report any information found to this website! Please include the entire in-game message.

3.0.2a - 2008/11/03
- Added some reported recipes.

3.0 - 2008/10/25
- Took over the addon 'AdSpace' and at original author's request, renamed it. New name is 'Swindler Preventer'! Will include info on tradeable items beyond just recipes. Will start with vanity pets.

Love you add on and been using it since it came out. It is working perfectly at the moment without errors or anything. I am not sure if the database needs updating or if you use periodictable Lib for you database? I went to Curse Forge so I could monitor updates from there and it is not there at all. I tried all search variables to find it and it has been removed. I don't know if it is even worth listing that again till you do an update or if that means more work at the time. Just a heads up incase you wanted to know or not?

Thanks again for such an awesome add on and if the database needs updating is there anything I can do to help? I don't know any coding though sorry. But if I can help in anyway please let me know.

It's been a very long time since I've played WoW but as far as I know the addon should still work perfectly if you 'load out of date addons.'

If it doesn't, let me know. I still support it, although I'm a little too busy to do updates that are only TOC updates, sorry.

As for it not being on curse, it's still available on curseforge with a flag that it's 'abandoned.' I sent a report saying I haven't abandoned it so maybe that'll get it back on curse? I can throw out a TOC update if that's what it needs to get listed again.

__________________
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” — Bilbo Baggins, from his speech on his eleventy-first birthday.

@Barleduq - Yup, works fine. I was beta testing it on the MoP beta and fixed the bugs already. The ToC should actually already be set for 5.0.4 so you don't even need to do load out of date addons.

Gonna do a data update eventually though.

__________________
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” — Bilbo Baggins, from his speech on his eleventy-first birthday.

Does this need anything in order to be working for 5.0.4 / MoP? Hoping I can still use it... I'm sure I'll have "load out-of-date addons" checked for other things, just wanting to make sure it won't break completely...

Aha - this is what I didn't realize, that it was only showing vendors I could interact with. I use the info of 'how many vendors' to determine if it's worth buying and, yes, reselling on the AH, or more often, the Neutral Auction House. Thus, if something's available opposite-faction, depending on where, it might be very worthwhile to grab to resell, to grab on the AH at a low price, to grab for my alts, etc.

I've put some thought into listing opposite-faction vendors... But, very few people 'play' the neutral auction house, because of all the effort involved in translating to the other faction. (Doesn't it involve a second account or something since you can't buy your alt's items on the neutral AH? I don't even know.)

Sure, there's potential to be made for those willing to put in that effort... But I tend to assume that they also have other/better resources for identifying what best to market this way. (After all, I think Auctioneer has a setting where it will display the market price of the opposite faction's and/or neutral auction house if you want it to. In fact it even has a search method to find and buy items solely for the purpose of putting them on a different AH.)

Originally Posted by Barleduq

Yes, this is what I meant - new/changed data into the add-on's info so it can be displayed. I'll double check a few, I thought there was some situation where I expected it to do so and it hadn't, but I may well be completely off base here. That's *excellent* that you have it self-update on the fly, kudos to you! Makes less work for you!

Whenever the addon says 'new data detected!' that data will display in the tooltip for that item until you upgrade to the next version (unless you somehow exit wow without your addons being able to save their data, like if WoW crashes). Assuming that I have added that data into the main addon's database (which I will if you report it to me), it will continue to display even after updating to the next version, it'll just come from the main addon database instead of your own local copy.

So there's no way for you to .. never mind, I sure as hell wouldn't want to try to visit every single vendor in the game to update the data

Not sure what you're asking, but yeah, I often find data myself as I'm playing my own characters. I add that in with data others report as well.

If you're asking why I wipe users' local database when I go to a new version, there's multiple reasons. 1 - To give incentive to report the data instead of just keep it in your local version forever (that way it benefits everyone instead of just yourself). 2 - If you don't report it, someone else probably will, and it will be added to the main database at some point. There's no point in listing the data twice, once in the addon's database and again in your own local one. And 3 - Often people will send me their entire local database. Before I added in the 'wipe' on each version, their local database would often be huge, but only contain things I had already added in previous versions. >.< Waste of time for them and me.

So how would be the best way to get info to you to be included?

That's actually like my one and only FAQ. I used to have it in the main description here on WoWInterface but I didn't like how it looked here, it was kind of like a big wall of text. I don't mean to be rude and link to a competitive site, but if you look on the Curse page for this addon you should see the answer to that question in the description of the addon.

If you like it that much you could always donate! Kidding, of course. =D Just knowing there's people out there using it makes me pretty happy, actually, a job done well and all that. (But yeah, if you wanna donate, feel free. Economy and all. Help out a broke college student! hehe)

__________________
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” — Bilbo Baggins, from his speech on his eleventy-first birthday.

Also, an item could have 2 Ally vendors and 1 Horde one, or 1 Horde, 1 Ally, and 1 Neutral. Swindler Preventer will only list vendors your faction can interact with. So just because SP lists 2 vendors and Informant from Auctioneer (or other addons) list 3 vendors doesn't mean one of us is wrong. It just means we're displaying different data.

Aha - this is what I didn't realize, that it was only showing vendors I could interact with. I use the info of 'how many vendors' to determine if it's worth buying and, yes, reselling on the AH, or more often, the Neutral Auction House. Thus, if something's available opposite-faction, depending on where, it might be very worthwhile to grab to resell, to grab on the AH at a low price, to grab for my alts, etc.

Originally Posted by Thortok2000

The other meaning of 'taken up and integrated' that I'm not sure if that's what you meant or not is that Swindler Preventer will maintain its own database whether you report the new data to me or not. If you find a new location or new item altogether, the addon will display that new data in the tooltip.

Yes, this is what I meant - new/changed data into the add-on's info so it can be displayed. I'll double check a few, I thought there was some situation where I expected it to do so and it hadn't, but I may well be completely off base here. That's *excellent* that you have it self-update on the fly, kudos to you! Makes less work for you!

Originally Posted by Thortok2000

However, if you fail to report it and I happen to not add that data from someone else's report, and you upgrade to a new version, then it will wipe that data until you visit that vendor again.

So there's no way for you to .. never mind, I sure as hell wouldn't want to try to visit every single vendor in the game to update the data

You answered both questions I had and questions I didn't know I had!

Originally Posted by Thortok2000

@all - Minor data update coming when I have the time. Do appreciate the data people send in now and then. ^_^

When you say 'taken up and integrated' I'm not sure what you mean. Ackis Recipe List is great for finding missing recipes in your tradeskill and knowing where to get them. This addon takes the reverse approach, it tells you directly in the recipe itself if there's a cheaper alternative (buying from the vendor instead of overpriced on the AH).

Also, an item could have 2 Ally vendors and 1 Horde one, or 1 Horde, 1 Ally, and 1 Neutral. Swindler Preventer will only list vendors your faction can interact with. So just because SP lists 2 vendors and Informant from Auctioneer (or other addons) list 3 vendors doesn't mean one of us is wrong. It just means we're displaying different data.

The other meaning of 'taken up and integrated' that I'm not sure if that's what you meant or not is that Swindler Preventer will maintain its own database whether you report the new data to me or not. If you find a new location or new item altogether, the addon will display that new data in the tooltip. However, if you fail to report it and I happen to not add that data from someone else's report, and you upgrade to a new version, then it will wipe that data until you visit that vendor again. So that sort of 'takes and integrates' data already, if that's what you meant...

I'm sorry I'm just not really sure what you're asking. Glad you like the addon though. ^_^

@all - Minor data update coming when I have the time. Do appreciate the data people send in now and then. ^_^

__________________
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” — Bilbo Baggins, from his speech on his eleventy-first birthday.

is there a specific way to report missing data that would have it be taken up and integrated? I've gotten a few mis-matches between one of my other addons reporting 'sold by 3 vendors' and only 2 being listed from this. I realize it won't be updated for single vendors, but knowing the info is being seen and will be included helps a lot.

Thanks, I do love this, it tells me *which* vendors and where, rather than just how many others.

thank you so much Thortok for making such a wonderful addon. don't even for a moment think it's not that 'big of a deal.' your contribution to the wow community has been amazing. swindler preventer is such a useful tool!